Bioware

Before I duck back out into the Hinterlands, I do my rounds in Haven. I visit the tavern and end up meeting Flissa for the first time. I correct her on being Dalish and not being an Alienage, and dear lord this woman is so awkward about the way I look, even if I'm edge a little. “Things on my face?” Urgh, please shut up, Flissa.

My heart.

If there's one thing I've learned playing Dragon Age, it's that ladies can't resist the allure of a tortured-yet-charmingly-sarcastic blond Templars. Here, we see Alistair and Cullen having a musical face-off (Into the Woods-style) about who is more charmingly tortured. As one YouTube commenter points out, a Lyrium-addicted Cullen telling Alistair that he "knows nothing of madness" makes a heck of a lot of sense. Plus, shirtlessness.

The nominees for the 26th annual GLAAD Media Awards were announced today, which recognize works that have "fair, accurate, and inclusive representations of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community and the issues that affect their lives." Because genre media can often be forward-thinking and groundbreaking in representation, it should come as no surprise that the things we love here on TMS are well-represented among the nominees.

HELL yeah!

One of the best things about many Bioware games is that you can select the gender of the character you play. Despite that, the marketing for Mass Effect tended to focus almost exclusively on the male avatars for a super long time, until criticism of this practice finally led to a trailer for FemShep in 2011. Which is odd, because if Lead ME cinematic animator Jonathan Cooper is to be believed, FemShep technically came first.

Dragon Age: Inquisition might just have one of the best representations of a trans character in video games ever. Writer Patrick Weekes took to the BioWare Blog to discuss exactly how this character came to be, and why they all loved creating him so much.

High five team!

You'll be happy to know that every single one of The Mary Sue's editors have wound up on GamerGate's SJW autoblock list, and we can now proudly wear this badge designed by Kate Leth. Well, that's not quite true - all of us except our one male editor made the list. Funny, that. (via Twitter)

Krem is a mercenary in Iron Bull's group, the Chargers - and he also happens to be trans. That fact isn't even brought up until about halfway through the game, when you sit down to have a conversation with the Chargers - and Iron Bull handles the situation with much aplomb.

Hey, geeks! We know lots of folks are taking advantage of Black Friday deals in physical stores today but the old interweb has lots to offer too! We've collected a few deals you might be interested in.